China ready to go further on climate change: sources

China appears ready to set a more ambitious climate change pledge by moving up the timeline for peaking its carbon emissions and opening the possibility of sending money to other countries to take action, according to EU sources close to the negotiations.

The declaration is expected no later than Tuesday, following parallel summits with China and the EU in Brussels, and in New York with United Nations members.

This follows a round of negotiations in New York over the weekend between China, the EU, the United States, South Africa, Brazil and the UN. The European Commission’s climate action and energy chief, Miguel Arias Cañete, flew to New York on Friday to negotiate directly with Xie Zhenhua, China’s special representative for climate change, where he urged Beijing to submit its planned pledge for the COP21 summit in December, known as the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), on Monday.

“We are making great efforts to bring about a revolution,” said Xie, noting that as of 2014, China had reduced its emissions by 33.8 percent compared with 2005 and that it aims to reach 45 percent by 2020.

China is expected to make an announcement that takes it beyond the broad-stroke targets for 2030, and offers more specifics on what it will do to curb climate change, EU sources told POLITICO.

In particular, Beijing is expected to state more explicitly that China’s emissions will hit their highest point before 2030, as they are already on track to do. It could say it will eventually join developed countries in financing climate action and adaptation in developing countries, and eventually link its nascent emissions trading system (ETS) to other international markets.

“We think there will be announcements on increasing emissions trading and potentially on clean technology and green trade cooperation,” said Nick Mabey, chief executive of the environmental analysis group E3G and co-author of a new report on how China and the EU can cooperate on climate issues.

The anticipation around China’s commitment for the UN’s COP21 climate change summit in Paris in December is significant. The country accounts for a quarter of the world’s CO2 emissions and one-third of the G20’s (which as a group produces 75 percent of the world’s emissions).

The size of its pledge is therefore seen as a make-or-break for the COP21, where the aim is to ensure that country commitments are sufficient to keeping global warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius.

But Beijing has so far kept its cards close to its chest. The country has said it will likely submit its pledge to the UN by the end of June.

Beijing has also released a draft commitment, which lays out a plan to reduce emissions by 35 to 45 percent by 2030, but the hope is that the final pledge will be more ambitious.

China signaled its willingness to strengthen its efforts last November, when it shook on a deal with Washington that included a promise to peak its emissions by 2030 and boost the share of non-fossil fuel energy sources to 20 percent by that year.

Transatlantic meetings

Monday’s high-level event in New York will be led by UN General Assembly President Sam Kutesa, along with Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius, whose government will host the Paris summit.

The goal is to generate “impetus and political momentum” for a promising climate change deal. It falls at the mid-point between last year’s COP20 summit in Lima, Peru — which has been panned as a failure for its weak commitments — and Paris. But it’s a strictly stage-managed affair, with speakers limited to three minutes.

In Brussels, the 17th EU-China bilateral summit throws the spotlight on 40 years of diplomatic relations between the two, and marks Li Keqiang’s first visit to the EU as premier.

“Together, China and the EU signed a joint announcement on climate change, we are willing to work together with the EU side,” Li said at a press conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk.

The developed-developing divide

At the moment, the world appears headed for a temperature rise of up to 4 degrees Celsius, not the less than 2 degrees that is seen as manageable, according to Janos Pasztor, the UN’s assistant secretary general and Ban Ki-moon’s chief adviser on climate change. Around 40 countries have submitted INDCs thus far, and analysts are already saying they are not sufficient enough to limit global warming.

“It’s fairly clear to most observers that the national commitments that matter will not put us on a two-degree plan. But at the same time, I think it would be a mistake to say that Paris is already a failure,” said Pasztor.

What’s important, however, is what measures countries promise to take to tackle climate change and gradually eliminate carbon from their economies, he added. “The developed countries would like to have a long-term goal, which is fine, but from the developing country perspective, if there is a long-term decarbonization goal they’ll be required to do things in a way that perhaps won’t allow their development to continue.”